Published October 25, 2017 
Rounds with Leadership: Bridging the Nurse Faculty Shortage
"Without enough faculty members to teach the next generation of health professionals, the nation's health infrastructure is in jeopardy" (Moskowitz, 2007, p. 1). This dire assessment by the Association of Academic Health Centers (AAHC) is as relevant today as it was when the AAHC's survey of health system CEOs was released a decade ago.
Within academic nursing, the faculty shortage has been well documented (Berlin & Sechrist, 2002; Yordy, 2006; Allan & Aldebron, 2008) and is reaching a critical juncture. New data show that one-third of the rapidly aging nurse faculty workforce is projected to retire by 2025 (Fang & Kesten, 2017). This finding, based on data compiled by AACN, should serve as a call to action to leaders in nursing education and practice to seek out new ways for preparing the faculty needed to teach, generate research, and innovate clinical practice.
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Weekly Digest
In the September-October 2017 issue of Nursing Economic$, Dr. Peter Buerhaus and colleagues report on the State of the Registered Nurse Workforce as a New Era of Health Reform Emerges. Using data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau (American Community Survey) and the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (IPEDS) from 2001-2015, the following results were identified:
- In 2015, nurses with a baccalaureate or graduate degree composed 62% of the RN workforce, representing an increase from 55% in 2001.
- The population of nurses from underrepresented groups has increased from 18% in 2001 to 24% in 2015. By comparison, individuals from diverse racial/ethnic groups comprised 21% of the U.S. labor force in 2014.
- The RN population is currently 88% female, 12% male.
The study's authors project that the growth in the nursing workforce through 2030 will be large enough to replace more than 1 million RNs expected to retire during this time period, though growth will be uneven throughout the country, resulting in temporary and local shortages.
AACN Updates

The Social Pulse
Prestigious Award for Health Care Provider Training and Education
Applications are now open for the 2nd annual Innovation Award for Health Care Provider Training and Education. This award recognizes health professional training programs that are ahead of the curve in providing nutrition, physical activity, and obesity counseling education to their students. Find out if your program qualifies at InnovatingHealthcare.org.
AACN Joins Research!America to Thank Public Health Professionals
November 20 is Public Health Thank You Day! On this day, organizations recognize public health professionals who work tirelessly every day to protect us from disease, injury, and other health threats. From the ordinary to the extraordinary, these heroes keep our drinking water safe, air clean, and children healthy. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #PHTYD, and visit Research!America's PHTYD Medium.com page for videos and other resources you can share on social media.
Washington Weekly
Inside this edition of Washington Weekly: House to vote on Senate's FY 2018 Budget proposal; and AACN and NIDA announce call for evidence-based practice proposals on substance use disorder treatment.
Read AACN's Washington Weekly >>
Featured Resource
AACN-TV is an online portal for showcasing innovations in academic nursing. This platform will provide AACN member schools access to high quality video services at a discounted rate, which will facilitate their ability to show the "human side" of their programs to a national audience and to educate the next generation of professional nurses.
Videos produced may be used to help recruit new students and faculty, highlight nurse-led research efforts, profile faculty members and/or students, spotlight community-based health services, showcase curricular innovations, illustrate pathways into nursing, and in many other ways. Schools producing video segments will own the content and may use the promotional material for their own marketing and communications purposes. AACN is committed to sharing the resulting videos with a national audience via media outreach, at upcoming conferences, through the association's nursing school directory, and on AACN's meetings app.
The following schools have produced videos for AACN-TV, which will be streamed throughout AACN's Academic Nursing Leadership Conference in Washington, DC on October 28-31:
Auburn University at Montgomery
Baylor University
East Tennessee State University
Florida Atlantic University
Husson University
Indiana University-Purdue University
Indiana University
James Madison University
Nova Southeastern University
Old Dominion University
Purdue University Northwest
Purdue University West Lafayette
Robert Morris University
Rush University
Saginaw Valley State University
Simmons College
South Dakota State University
St. John Fisher College
Texas A & M at Corpus Christi
Texas State University
Texas Woman's University
The Ohio State University
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The University of Illinois at Chicago
The University of Iowa
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
The University of Tennessee Health Science Center
The University of Texas at Tyler
University of Houston
University of Memphis
University of Minnesota
University of Nevada Las Vegas
University of Rochester
University of South Carolina Upstate
University of South Dakota
University of South Florida
University of Tennessee Knoxville
University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas Medical Branch
University of Vermont
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Wyoming
Villanova University
West Coast University
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Nursing schools interested in finding out more about AACN-TV, including production requirements, timeline, and costs are encouraged to contact site producer Danny Cohen with New Media News TV at
danny@aacntv.org. For additional information, contact AACN's Chief Communications Officer Robert Rosseter at
rrosseter@aacnnursing.org.
See Past Issues of AACN News Watch